


The Linguist

by hafren



Category: Hornblower (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-26
Updated: 2009-11-26
Packaged: 2017-10-03 18:47:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hafren/pseuds/hafren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The language Wolfe didn't speak</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Linguist

"Pas là, you stupid bastard! Ci-devant, vite!" He switched between French and English without pausing or noticing, as if it made no odds. Nor it did, mostly. The jargon of gunnery and manoeuvres came easier to him in French these days. In temper, though, he reverted to English, a good language to curse in.

He had a quick ear. His French was as idiomatic as anyone's. It could have been as unaccented, had he wished. But he didn't.

His father had never lost his accent either, though he'd dearly have loved to. Wolfe's mouth tightened as he recalled him, in a voice as Irish as his own, execrating the tongue of his childhood, the tongue of saints and scholars:

"Sure, it's good for nothin' but to hould ye back! Be the time this century turns, it's English will be the speech of every man of any substance in this country."

He had brought up his son speaking only the language of power; at the time, the son had thought it reasonable, if he thought about it at all.

It was when they stood by the bed of his grandmother, dying in the remote little village where she had been born, that his mind changed. When she held his hand and whispered "A stoirin, a leanbh na páirte," and he had to turn to his father and ask him to translate.

Two languages at his tongue's tip. But the salt of bitterness in his voice came from the one he'd been robbed of.


End file.
